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And a parent living in Washington state wanting to send their legal kid to a CA college has to pay out-of-state tuition while an illegal gets in-state tuition.

Something here doesn't make sense. I just can't put my finger on it. I'll have to go give it some more thought.

I'm with you. My daughter thought about heading out to California to college. She is a California native residing in North Carolina. She has had taxpaying relatives living in California since 1869 on her mother's side, only 1938 or so on my side. All of her grandparents are still living there as well as many of her aunts/uncles and cousins. I told her she would be better off going to college here as she would be charged out of state tuition rates there. I agree we need to educate all of our citizens but it seems we have this class of " non citizen" citizens we don't quite know how to handle.

[quote=.highnlite;16677105]How many of you think illegals pay less taxes than you?

Thought so, to think that some how you are paying taxes and they are not, defies belief.

Sure illegals pay taxes. They pay sales tax, real estate taxes ( if they own property), and state/local taxes. Most state taxes are regressive in nature, although California has one of the more progressive tax structures of all the states. Do they pay federal taxes? In 2009, only if they are in the top 53% of earners in the U.S. The bottom 47 % of wage earners paid ZERO federal taxes. The top 20% of wage earners pay 67% of federal taxes in the U.S. The current Federal tax system is a MASSIVE redistribution of income.

What about the California parent wanting to send their kid to Washington State for college. Are they going to get in state tuition.

Make sense now?

What about the parent living in Tijuana, Mexico wanting to send their kid to college in California? They have a strategy that US citizens don't have available to them. It is a mess. It still does not make sense to me as we are talking about citizens vs. non citizens.

is anyone else torn on this? i understand that it is not fair to kids from other states who are american citizens, but i don't think it is all bad either. illegal immigrants tend to be extremely poor, so giving the youth an opportunity to educate themselves and pull themselves out of the depths of poverty seems to be a pretty good idea. since the illegals aren't going anywhere anyways (due to their large numbers), we might as well give them a path out of crime and poverty. it costs us nothing if an immigrant chooses not to take advantage of this offer anyways. having said that, the subsidies to in-state students are pretty large and this would cost the state a lot of money. i would just hope that this would be an investment that would pay off in the long run.

FWIW, i am not a bleeding-heart liberal. i am looking at this strictly from an economic point of view, although there is a social impact as well. i'd much rather give a man a rod to catch his own fish.

What is wrong with paying out of state tuition? A person coming from Virginia is going to have less rights and privileges as an non American??? At the very least, if they are here illegally, pay the tuition that out of state students pay.

The more vexing question is how do they register for classes?? I have to provide all sorts of documentation proving my citizenship when attending school...are those stipulations waived for illegals? If so, isn't that a violation of my Constitutional rights?

Do they pay federal taxes? In 2009, only if they are in the top 53% of earners in the U.S. The bottom 47 % of wage earners paid ZERO federal taxes. The top 20% of wage earners pay 67% of federal taxes in the U.S. The current Federal tax system is a MASSIVE redistribution of income.

That may be statistically accurate, but, I assure you folks in the lower end of earners pay income tax. Besides, federal tax money does not support education, outside of Sped.

you make a good point curmudgeon, but you fail to account for the macro economic impact of companies paying $25 vs. $15 an hour. That's an 67% increase in costs to the employer which will in turn be passed on to the consumer. there's two sides to this coin: 1. expenses go up across the board for everyone and 2. the government generates more in both income and sales taxes. i'm sure the government would love more taxes, but consumers are the noisiest lobby group in the land.

As an American, I'd rather pay a bit more for goods and services and not have 12 million law breakers crowding our land and schools and threatening our culture while waving a foreign flag and making demands.

Most pay much less in taxes than average. Even under the most generous scenario where none are working under the table, their incomes in aggregate, are low, so that means they're paying little in taxes.

Now, about these people confusing paying taxes with paying for education, I am sorry, another example of the failure of our public education system I guess.

I'm curious. Do you know how much taxpayer subsidies the CSU system receives? I used to work for Sac State, so I do. I guess this is yet another example of the failure of our public education system.

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